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Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Race day is finally here. I am so excited to run the streets of Cincinnati. On Saturday, it had rained a good bit throughout the day which caused me to rethink my outfit since I had no idea if it would be raining or not race morning.

So in the theme of it possibly raining during the half, I decided to be a "fish." I bought my Trigger shirt and water shorts by INKnBURN.

We stayed about a mile away from the start of the race. The walk wasn't bad. I felt like it was a warm-up for the race.

It sprinkled on us for a little bit while we made our way to the start line, but stopped shortly before the race started.

One thing I thought was pretty cool about this race is that our corrals are called pig pens.

The race started right on time.

We made our way along the Ohio River on to the streets before turning on to a bridge (forgot the name) crossing into Kentucky. We ran in Kentucky for about three miles before crossing another bridge back into Ohio. So far this far has been pretty flat compared to what I was use to, but I knew it wouldn't last for long.

The crowd support along the course was unbelievable. Better than some of the big local races near me.

Mile 4 - 6, we made our way back towards the city. Around this time, the humidity was starting to kick in and I wishing I had gone with my original outfit instead, but how was I suppose to know?

Miles 7 - 9 was nothing but hills. At one point during the race, we were overlooking Cincy, which I thought was amazing. I wish I had stopped for a photo. It would have been worth the extra minutes.

Miles 10 - 13 was completely downhill. Yep, downhill. I loved it. I knew not to kill it the first mile downhill. I just let my legs and gravity do the work.

I was at the finish swine before I knew it.

I finished at 2:00.

The snacks we got after the race were amazing. I only wish I had a bag to put everything in it because I could only carry so much.

They had us meet up with friends and family by the Ohio River. Perfect place for a picture after a tough but fun half marathon.

After we finished up with photos, it was time to head back to our hotels to get ready for the drive home. It was a great weekend. I highly recommend adding this race to your bucket list. I will be back to run it again in the future.

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

After about two months, I am finally getting around to posting a recap about the Flying Pig half marathon weekend.

I have been looking forward to this race since I signed up for it back in August 2015. My friends and I decided to drive up to Cincinnati since it was only a 7-hour drive from Atlanta. It was kind nice to see the mountains of Tennessee and the green pastures of Kentucky near Lexington.

We got to Cincy about 6 PM on Friday, April 29th. We quickly parked the car and made a beeline for the expo. We wanted to try and get as much stuff as we could before they closed the expo. Since this is a famous race, I had been told that Saturday was a crazy day for the expo and a lot of stuff quickly disappear.

We got our numbers and the swag that came with it.

Race shirt, race bag, magnet, and poster.

By the time, we got our swag we only had a few minutes before the expo closed. I managed to get a shirt made in the Asics area. Oh, and I was able to locate my name on the banner of names of the race participates. I thought that was pretty neat.

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Saturday morning, we returned to the expo to see what kind of trouble we could get into. This was by far one of the best expos I have ever been to. Yep, even better than a runDisney one. Oops. But no, seriously, it was a lot of fun. They were handing out full-size samples of stuff, which I failed to get a picture of but I promise it was pretty amazing.

I took the time to walk around to each booth. Some things were for local stuff, and some stuff wasn't (most race expos are like that anyways). I saw a few races I want to check out next year, so I am excited about that.

Overall, I liked the expo. I wish I had gotten more pictures of it, but I was having such a good time that I didn't get the phone out.